Channel Nine’s A Current Affair program ran a story tonight about the horrendous prices being charged by Parking Stations throughout Australia.

Airport Parking, Hospital parking, and especially CBD parking stations are charging exorbitant prices – adding a huge extra expense to your day out.

In Sydney you will need to pay up to $40 for 4 hours parking and in Brisbane you should expect to pay up to $61. Melbourne will set you back $54 for a 4 hour stay.

To make it worse, some parking stations highlight “special offers” from just $2 or $5. But unless you are very careful to read the fine print and abide by strict conditions, it is quite possible you will be slugged for between $30 and $50 for parking just 1-2 hrs.

Airports and Hospitals are also notorious for their parking fees, and because in many cases there is no other choice but to pay for parking, people are often forced to cut their visits short 0 – in order to9 try and reduce the costs.

If you are looking for casual parking, sites like CarParking.info are available to help you to find Cheap Parking.  They also offer a Free iphone  App which you can use while you are out and about amd on the prowl for cheap parking.

But of course, if you are looking for cheap longer term parking, you can search for Parking Spaces for rent on SpaceOut.com.au

See the ACA Story – Parking Fury

SpaceOut was featured in one of the cover articles from the September 2010 edition of Money Magazine  – An Extra $200 a month renting out spare space.

The Money Magazine “Smart Money” article outlines some of the many benefits of renting out your spare  space and Quotes our Technical Director (Andy Henderson) :

“Almost everyone has unused space around their home,apartment, or business – whether that’s your garage, your parking spot, your shed, a spare room or even your fridge – you’ll find there is someone out there willing to pay you to use it.”

Private rentals are increasingly becoming recognised as real alternatives to traditional self-storage facilities – and are often much more convenient, and significantly cheaper as well.  Using online services such as www. SpaceOut.com.au, ordinary Australians can lease out their excess or unused space privately and make a little extra cash on the side.

“Many of us have got a spare bedroom or shed. More often than not it’s half-filled with our own junk,  Why not do a reshuffle and rent it out?”

Private storage suits all types of people – particularly retirees and “empty nesters”,  who wouldn’t dream of  getting in a tenant (and sharing their house and lives with someone), but are very happy to store someones furniture in the spare room for a few months or more while the person is off travelling.

“Typically you are looking at between $100 and $200 a month for doing little more than putting stuff in a room and shutting the door”

If you’d like to read more about how you can make money from space, and turn your unused bedroom, shed or garage into an extra regular income, get out today and get your own copy of Money Magazine – September 2010.

Shed a nice little earner

Empty driveways, garages and sheds around Perth are being turned into cash cows.

Scores of people are pocketing up to $500 a month by renting out empty space they think could be useful to someone else.

SpaceOut.com.au is a website the matches “SpaceOwners” with “SpaceSeekers”.

Founder Damon Russell said. “When home and business owners realise that their unused space could be earning them a regular rental income with little or no effort, it is a real no-brainer”

Bayswater resident Carol Marshall is hoping to make some extra cash out of her back shed. She is asking #90 a week to rent it.

Mr Russell said the idea cam to him when he needed somewhere to store his belongings while he went overseas.

Channel 9′s A Current Affair program has run a series of reports over the last few weeks about the methods Australian National Car Parks (ANCP) seem to be using to intimidate people into paying “fines” for failing to get a ticket at public Car Parks they manage.

It was alleged that ANCP take advantage of the fact that people are often unaware that they need to get a ticket – even though the car parks are clearly signed as “2 Hours Free Parking”.  It seems that if you fail to get a ticket (even if you stay for less than 2 hrs) ANCP staff have been issuing ‘liquidated damages’  demands for $66 – which quickly escalate to $88 and then $163 if you don’t pay in time – in some cases followed by a NOTICE OF INTENTION TO SUE.

However, as a private company, ANCP does not have legal authority to administer fines.

What the law says:

A DRIVER using a private car park enters into a contract with the operator to abide by the terms and conditions stated on signs (which must be prominently displayed).

Under contract law, parties are not entitled to impose penalties for breach of contract but can seek “liquidated damages” – which are defined as a reasonable estimate of the damage suffered as a result of the contract being breached. If a court finds the estimate is not reasonable it is defined as a penalty and becomes invalid.

If damages are sought by a private car-park operators but resisted by the driver the issue may end up in court, however, the company then has to demonstrate how the damage it suffered equals the damages it is seeking.

There is considerable doubt whether ANCP could justify the $66 damages they have been demanding.

But It’s all happened before :

This is certainly not the first time this type of practice has been reported.

In April 2007, The Age (Crackdown on car parking ‘bullies ) reported similar practices by Australian National Car Parks and highlighted that a number of Victorian Councils had banned (or were considering bans) on ANCP operating within their regions.

Moreland Council, which includes Brunswick, Coburg and Pascoe Vale, accused Australian National Car Parks of bullying behaviour, and Darebin Council, which includes Northcote and Preston, had asked the company to stop handing out tickets.

At the time ANCP was being investigated by the NSW Office of Fair Trading and had also been reported to Consumer Affairs Victoria.

In 2006, then NSW fair trading minister Diane Beamer urged drivers to “exercise extreme caution” in ANCP car parks because the company could have been engaging in “improper, misleading and deceptive conduct”.

In October 2008, the Herald Sun (Supermarket shoppers not legally obliged to pay parking fines ) reported that tens of thousands of Victorians had paid up for shopping centre parking fines that they were not legally obliged to pay.

On 10th October, Consumer Affairs Victoria issued a state-wide alert warning motorists that Care Park Pty Ltd had no power to issue fines or impose penalties at “free” supermarket car parks.  Also at that time Australian National Car Parks was at the centre of a case designed to test the legality of its demands, and a third company that issued demand notices – Parking Infringements Victoria – was under investigation by Consumer Affairs.

A Facebook group called The People vs Australian National Car Parks -  has been established with the aim of helping with information and advice.  There are also plenty of active forums discussing the issues, but consensus seems to be that if you do get issued with one of these demand notices – don’t panic and don’t lose sleep over it – simply throw the notice away.

Workers on park avenue

Fed-up city workers are ditching expensive CBD carparks for cheaper backyard spots.

Brisbane was ranked as the seventh moist expensive city in the world for parking in the most recent Colliers International Global CBD Parking Rate survey, with motorists having to pay a median monthly cost of $596 for parking.

The survey found Brisbanites were spending more on their parking than those living in Tokyo or New York.

But a local website is revolutionising city parking by matching desperate motorists with inner-city tenants who have room to spare in carparks backyards and garages.

SpaceOut.com.au advertises private car spaces for rent, and places ads for commuters hoping to find cheap car parks close to their work.

This morning the site offered an undercover parking space in South Brisbane for $50 a week or $160 a month

Meanwhile a space with double-swipe security protection at Spring Hill was being advertised for the bargain price of #240 a month.

Spaceout’s Andy Henderson said many private carpark providers were inner-city residents who lived and socialised in the city and chose not to have a car.

“We’re getting a lot more inner-city accommodation, and a lot of those, for example are being filled by foreign students who don’t have a car.” he said.

“They see this as an opportunity to subsidise their rent.“

If you have any spare space like a spare room, sunroom, shed or garage, you could earn a lazy $100 a week by putting it up for rent as space.  Lots of travellers like a place to store their stuff and commercial storage is getting expensive.

It’s a tenant without the hassle says Roget Hawley, who told Value Hunter a few months ago that he had a two-car garage in Brisbane’s north-side, but with only one car, and decided to offer the space for rent on www.spaceout.com.au.  It’s now earning him $180 a month.

Today’s article is a follow-up on a piece that Jane Hansen did in August this year where SpaceOut was featured on Value Hunter’s “Cash in Your Spare Space” article.

“One Idea that I really like is SpaceOut.  I love this idea of making money out of things that we already own.  SpaceOut is a website where you can list a spare bedroom, an empty garage, or a farmer could even list an empty paddock for animals for agistment.  It’s kind of making money out of nothing – that’s got to be a really good idea.“

Here is the video :

This episode featured SpaceOut in a story about some innovative Small Business ideas for making money. Paul Clitheroe, one of Australia’s leading media commentators on financial issues said :

“One Idea that I really like is SpaceOut.  I love this idea of making money out of things that we already own.  SpaceOut is a website where you can list a spare bedroom, an empty garage, or a farmer could even list an empty paddock for animals for agistment.  It’s kind of making money out of nothing – that’s got to be a really good idea.“

The Final episode also included stories about :

• Making your own Washing Powder - is easier than you think and a way to save a packet on your laundry costs
• Kids Jobs – becoming a referee for their favourite sport – or busking can be a great way for kids to make money
• Family Daycare – ever thought about setting up your own Family Day care centre ?
• Small Business Ideas – setting up your own small business (like SpaceOut) can be a fabulous way to make some extra money

We are excited to see that SpaceOut has once again been recognised as a great way for ordinary Australians to make some extra money (by renting out unused space in your home and business) or saving money (by finding cheap and convenient space to rent).

SmartCompany Web Awards 2009

The SmartCompany Web Awards were designed to show just how good small business websites could really be.  There were more than 200 entries, from small and large businesses – Australia wide.

We were very pleased to learn that despite very heavy competition – against much larger businesses and websites that have been established for considerably longer – SpaceOut made it into the finals and was considered to be one of the top 3 Best Small Business Websites.

SpaceOut makes it to the finals

We are pretty proud with what we have achieved already (in such a short time)  with SpaceOut – and whilst we knew that we had a great idea, a cool website,  and offered a fabulous service, it is still very satisfying to get this type of recognition.This is a great pat on the back for us and inspires us to forge ahead with our plans, and make the site and  service that we offer even better.

We are also excited to be able to prove that it really is possible for relatively small startup business to compete with big businesses that have considerably larger budgets. When it comes to great websites, it’s not necessarily how much money you spend but how you spend it.

• Inside Self Storage – Hot News
  SpaceOut Conducts Survey of Australia Self-Storage Prices, Reveals Results
  Provides a summary of our Australia wide Self Storage Price Survey
  
• Money for Jam Blog
  Money tight? – Now you can make it out of thin air
  It is now possible for average Aussies to make real money out of unused space in their homes or businesses by renting it out as storage.
  
• Lifehacker Australia
  Storage Priciest In Sydney, Cheaper From Independents
  It’s no big surprise that renting storage space costs more in Sydney ($800 per month for a garage-sized space) than anywhere else. But it might surprise you to learn that independent storage providers are generally cheaper than national chains.
  
• Optus Business Biz Think Tank – Featured Business of the Month
  The Optus Biz Think Tank showcase a different business every month that have used a mix of innovation and technology along the way.  SpaceOut is the featured business for Oct/Nov 2009.
• Low Budget Prosper
  Crisis business idea – renting storage space
  Seems like a perfect crisis business idea… paying for unused office space or ignoring the opportunity to earn money by renting spare space or a parking spot is truly impractical. This business idea just hast to be successful!